


Nurse Randall

by KalendraAshtar



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Badass Claire Beauchamp, Ficlet, Gen, Prequel, Small Dose of Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-07-10 22:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7011586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KalendraAshtar/pseuds/KalendraAshtar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire was born to be a healer. But how did she find her calling, training as a nurse during WWII?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nurse Randall

**Pembroke Hospital, 1939**

“Nurse Randaaaaaaall!” The Matron yelled at the distance and I jumped from the berth where I had collapsed, scarcely five minutes before, after spending the entire night doing an inventory with Nurse Crochet. Well, actually she was called Nurse Armistead, but she seemed to spend every waking hour, when she wasn’t inspecting my work and criticizing my sutures, doing an assorted array of crochet and macrame, and so I thought the name really suited her abilities.

It was my second week in Pembroke hospital, but it might as well be my second year. I had gone there knowing that work would be hard and demanding – the war was growing in brutality with each passing day and the wounded arrived relentlessly – but the reality exceeded my worst expectations.

I considered myself a capable person, of a practical nature – how could I not be, after all those years with Uncle Lamb, living in deserts and jungles alike across the world? I was prepared for blood, guts and other fluids of the human body. But I wasn’t ready for people.

My first days in the hospital proved to be a trial of resistance and patience. The senior nurses had few gentle words to spare with the apprentices and the learning curve was to be fast and steady. Error wasn’t tolerated – an error could cost a life or the waste of good resources. I had so much to learn and no-one seemed inclined to waste time teaching me. But I had the will to learn and so I pushed on, trying to learn for myself. In my darkest moments I thought my efforts futile and wondered if I really had any business being there.

The rivalry between the junior nurses was another issue. Most girls were eager to prove themselves the best new trainee, the most aspiring nurse and gossip floated around our quarters each night.

I tried to stay away from trouble, but it turns out trouble seemed to find me with the aim of a bullet. Two nights prior to my evening spent with Nurse Crochet, I was engaged in the task of sorting and washing bandages. I was sweating heavily from the heat of the pan where I was scalding some linen, dreaming of a cold beer under the shade of the olives in Greece, when Nurse Bryant came to me.

“Nurse Randall.” She smiled. “I’m about to go for a short leave. Do you think you can give this to Captain Chambers later today? It’s the answer to a letter I helped him write.” She added in a confidential tone, showing me a yellow envelope. “Poor man, I think it’ll lift his spirits a little to read it.”

“Sure.” I answered, smiling back to her. Captain Chambers was a well-mannered and gallant member of the 50th Northumbrian who was placed under our care, after suffering a gunshot to the arm. He was quite popular with the nurses, making everybody laugh in his vicinity.

And so later that day I delivered the note to Captain Chambers while changing his dressings. He looked at me with a surprised look and opened the letter. As soon as he started reading it he turned red, his cheeks alive like the Canadian flag.

“Nurse Randall…” He babbled. “I’m very honoured by your attentions, a lovely lady as yourself…very very lovely indeed…but I was led to believe you were happily married?” He said, slightly stuttering. “This is highly inappropriate…”

The Matron happened (how fortunate!) to be passing by at that exact moment and noticing the disturbance in Captain Chamber’s complexion, fished the letter out of his hands. Her eyes quickly travelled through the content.

“Nurse Randall, to my office!” She barked. I followed her, bewildered by the events, but fairly sure that Nurse Bryant had used me as a courier of an indecent proposal to Captain Chambers.

“Is this yours?” Matron Azalea asked, putting the note in front of me eyes, an odour of cheap cologne streaming from it. “I doubt that it is. I just need to know who wrote this piece of…of…” She pressed her limps in anger. “This behaviour won’t be tolerated in my ward!”

I answered her with silence. I was fairly mad with Nurse Bryant, but wasn’t about to make my life even harder by snitching.

“Don’t you have nothing to say to me, Nurse Randall?” She added. “Think about your husband. If word of this get out, what would he think?”

My heart gripped at the thought of Frank. Even though we had been apart only for two weeks, I missed him dearly, our separation made even harder by the knowledge that it was bound to be a long one. What would he think? Well, at least he would know that my taste in perfume was better than that…

I waited for my punishment with my head held high, feeling that Pembroke Hospital might actually be worse than the boarding school I had managed to avoid during my childhood.

“Very well.” The Matron said, her nostrils flaring. “Since there is no reason to believe this improper behaviour has been consummated, I’ll let you go with a reprimand added to your file and extra duties as I see fit. You can start day after tomorrow aiding Nurse Armistead.”

I nodded gracefully and left her office, hell-bent on revenge. But my plotting was stalled by the arrival of a truck full of wounded officers, and I spent the next long hours sponge bathing them, mud and blood seared in my nose.

After a long night assisting Nurse Crochet while she did inventory of medical supplies, her pace approaching that of an aging turtle, I was honestly dreading the task Matron Azalea was about to bestow upon me.

“Nurse Randall!” The Matron greeted me, her eyes quickly inspecting the state of my hair and uniform. Luckily she had given me enough warning with her screams, so I was presentable enough. “You are to keep company to Private Andrews, poor man. See what you can do to ease him.”

Private John Andrews was a kind and young man, aged nineteen, who came to Pembroke to die from consumption. I had seen him lying in bed, his eyes fixed on the empty white sealing, while I went about my tasks. It seemed that the next of my punishments was to watch him fade away.

“Private Andrews.” I said, trying to present a benevolent smile. “How are you today?”

“As well as can be expected, I supposed.” He said, and I noticed he had a scottish accent. “I’m sae sorry, but I dinna recall yer name Nurse.”

“I’m Nurse Randall.” I said, sitting on the chair next to the bed. “Is there anything I could do for you?” I asked softly.

“Aye.” He whispered. “I’d be grateful if we could…talk, ye ken. I miss talking to someone.”

“Okay.” I answered. I could do it. Talking was within my expertise. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Ye could tell me a story, aye?” He said, a weak smile on his lips. “Something good.”

“I have plenty of those.” I said, feeling more confident. And so I told him stories of my past, of my travels and people I’d met. I told him about ancient civilizations and weird costumes of people far far away. I told him about how big the world was, but how much one could miss having a home.

He seemed comforted by my tales, his emaciated face relaxing, sometimes even looking blissful. Sometimes I’d think him asleep, but as soon as I stopped talking he turned his head and nodded or made small noises of encouragement.  

“Can you tell me something about yourself?” I asked the next evening, after finishing a story about an oracle I had met in New Dehli.

“I’m from Inverness.” He said. “Have ye been to Scotland?”

“Yes.” I smiled, joyful and electric memories flooding my brain. “Actually I spent my honeymoon there. Just two days, but it was quite remarkable.”

“Ah.” He had a coughing attack and I held him through it, the handkerchief he was holding stained with blood. He breathed fast and laboriously for a while and I thought he was too weak to speak, but eventually his soft voice reached me.

“I loved a lassie.” He whispered. “She was sae bonny, her hair was fair as a daisy and her eyes were blue and deep like the lake I used to fish in.”

“Oh.” I said, waiting for the rest of the story. He coughed a little more.

“I dinna think I was worthy of her, ye ken? Every lad wanted her attentions, some with much more to offer her, aye?” He licked his chapped lips. “When our paths crossed I used to smile to her, but never stopped or said anything.”

I didn’t quite understand how one could love someone without ever speaking to them, but I knew enough of the world to realize that love seldom made any sense at all.

“When I enlisted, I searched for my lassie.” He said. “I wasna going to say anything, I just wanted to see her one last time, aye? I found her in the square. I walked past her and brushed my arm against hers and she said _“Hello, John.””_ He shook his head. “I dinna want to believe she actually kent who I was!”

“It seems to me she had noticed you, as much as you noticed her.” I said smiling. He looked at me, his green eyes big in an ethereal face.

“I stood there just looking at her, making a fool of myself.” He said, biting his lip. “She smiled to me, waved and went away. I missed my chance.” A tear streamed down his face. “I never kissed a lass. I could have kissed her goodbye! She was just there… And I did nothing!” Emotion caught in his throat awaking a new coughing fit.

“And now I’ll never kiss a lass.” He whispered, closing his eyes. “But at least ye’re here, Nurse Randall.”

That was the moment when I understood. Maybe I would never learn how to sow as quickly as the Matron, how to treat colic, how to introduce a syringe in the muscle inflicting the minimum of pain, how to be friends with the other nurses. But I had a purpose – my mere presence could keep pain at bay and offer relief. I could make a difference just by being there. There was nobody else to tell a story to Private Andrews and to mourn with him the lass he hadn’t kissed.

And so I held his hand throughout the darkest hours of night and when Death came for him I kissed him goodbye.


End file.
